This' my first approach to Selaxon Lutberg and it's great to hear there's people able to put out good cdr completely out of the blue. Judging the book by the cover I'd have said it was a "dark-ambient/industrial" release, but from the very first track you'll find that impression was completely wrong. ".think" starts with a melodic but yet melancholic song on the edge between isolationism and minimalism (mainly for the piano playing). I'm not sure the emphasis is constant for the whole length of the song, but the suggestive impact is high therefore tip of hat!. Be it the piano or the global effect that make sound everything distant, it reminded me of Mogway and in particular of that song titled "Stanley Kubrik". The mood is sad but not desperate, simple but not skeletal and the documentary impression is there. The second track (.letto di bambola e neve) follows on the same rail but the few piano notes are even more choked by the fog created by the soft "white-noise". If listened after the opening track the second will appear as the next movement of the same theme and I think that's probably intentional. We can add the melody is again sad but this time it gets a bit darker. If the first part of the cd is the perfect soundtrack for the end titles of a movie, the second one should be played when the screenplays requires a sparkle of suspance. Half an hour of relaxing music here and above all much better of many official releases we receive.

Airport 81 is a new band coming from San Diego. The trio is formed by A-Drive, Sneaky Pete and Tape and they sound is an hybrid of Gang Of Four, punk and arcade games. Tracks like the opening "Bonus Jack" or the following "Hectometre" sound like Pacman formed his own punk band. The bass guitar and the drums form the main structure of the song while the keyboard (that command a sample machine, I guess) spreads out noises, low-fi melodies, 8-bit samples of blasting bombs and so on. The result is really intriguing and while listening to it I hear echoes of Jesus Lizard and Slint but the samples make the tracks turn into something more personal. It's like a soundtrack for surf movies of the future, where the little aliens from Space Invaders are the main actors. The middle section of "Dequencer" remember me also early Gary Numan but at the end it turns into somethnig else. There are some moment where the sound turns experimental (like on "New Yoko") but after that the run to the sea made out of transistors starts again. Vocals are rare but you don't need them, there's so much to listen to that you won't notice. Amazing! You should check this out definitely...

The story of Tony Conrad starts back in early sixties when he joined the ensemble formed by saxophonist La Monte Young, his wife Marian Zazeela, Bill Name, Angus MacLise and John Cale (which joined them at the same time of Conrad's) forming the Dream Syndicate. The experience lasted until 1965 when they disbanded after performing improvisation sets where the notes where played four hours creating a drone effect with acustic instruments. Tony Conrad with his violin experimented and explored the harmonic deconstruction. Later he collaborated with Cale, Lou Reed and later on early seventies it happened to met Faust members. In 1972 they recorded "Outside the Dream Syndicate". Conrad and Faust members collaborated again but only on mid 90s for a live concert. On that time Table Of Elements was reprinting the "Outside the Dream Syndicate" album so in 1995 Conrad and Faust decided to performe it live at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. OUTSIDE THE DREAM SYNDICATE ALIVE is the recording of that performance and it sounds really violent if you think that is performed by people that was involved into the Kraut rock movement. The CD contains the fifty minutes performance plus the ten minutes encore. To try to explain to you how it sounds try to imagine a raped violin that plays dissonant chords creating a mesmerizing atmosphere. The pulsating drum and the bass guitar (which plays only one note) joins in about fifteen minutes later and starting from that point is a crescendo that last for other thirtyfive minutes. At the end bassist Jean-Herve Peron had his fingers bleeding. The ten minutes long "Encore" is similar to the first track but here the bass does some basic melodies, giving to the audience other throbbing moments.

I already reviewed Into The Hole's DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME two times already (check http://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/index.php?id=1098 and http://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/index.php?id=860) when Alessandro first sent me the demo and then the definitive version of his six tracks MCD. This new release printed by Alchemist Fanatix Records has got no differences from the latest one that Alessando sent me, so basically my mind hasn't changed since then. His music gathers electronic, punk and wave influences and a better production would help a lot into showing that Into The Hole's music is deserving a wider audience. I hope that the worldwide promotion that Alchemist Fanatix is doing will help them releasing something new soon.

This is the third release from the dark ambient artist "Svartsinn" and according to the their label, Cyclic Law, the end of a trilogy. I haven't had the opportunity to hear Svartsinn's two previous releases but even when coming in on the end of a three part act, this CD is still very effective. Dark sustained tones, minimalistic melodies and an abundance of atmospheric sounds sum of the general ambiance of this release. As a disturbingly calm yet gloomy soundtrack to a dark and stormy evening in the home this really hits the spot. Production-wise the disc is spot on. The packaging (I received the digipak), while minimalistic like the music, looks fantastic and fits well with the themes heard on the CD. Stand out tracks: "Traces of Nothingness" and "Lost in Reveries".